Carbon Energy, a subsidiary of Metex Resources, this week appointed Brisbane-based engineering firm Thomas & Coffey to begin preliminary works pending permits and approvals.

"This marks another important milestone following our recent move to acquire 100 percent ownership of the UCG technology held through our joint venture with CSIRO, Carbon Energy Pty Ltd," Metex managing director Ian Walker said.

Carbon Energy is in the process of becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Metex.

The trial, to begin next year, is the largest of its kind ever undertaken in Australia, Walker said.

The development will include the construction of a 1 petajoule per annum syngas module.

The Bloodwood Creek trial site is within a defined coal resource of more than 100 million tonnes, which is estimated to contain 2000PJ of energy, with about 1000PJ being potentially recoverable utilising Carbon Energy's UCG process.

The technology involves drilling boreholes from surface to the underground coal seam, and gasifying the coal in-situ to produce a syngas suitable for conversion into feedstock for power generation, or for conversion into ultra-clean liquid fuels and chemicals.

Metex said UCG promises to significantly reduce the cost of introducing new clean coal technologies, by cutting costs at the coal gasification stage.

Carbon Energy has three commercial-scale options for the project under consideration.

Meanwhile, in a share swap, Australia's EESTech will acquire all shares in CO2 Technologies, a subsidiary of Canada's HTC, giving it the exclusive rights to commercialise the carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology in China, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore.

It will integrate the technology with its own Hybrid Coal Gas Turbine (HCGT) technology, which uses waste coal, ventilated air methane or biomass to produce electricity and steam.

EESTech says the combined systems can capture CO2 and methane from power stations and reduce the cost of carbon capture and sequestration by up to 40%.

The announcement follows EESTech's news in September that it had signed a deal with Beijing XingliYuan Science & Technology Company to provide its hybrid turbines to coal mining companies in China.

The verdict on CCS technology is mixed worldwide. For example, a recent report on energy infrastructure by the Investor Group on Climate Change said CCS offers potential to reduce coal-fired generation's emissions but it is still in the early stages of development.

UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer told the OPEC Summit at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia last month that the "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has identified CCS as the most promising technology for the rapid reduction of global emissions: up to 55% by 2100."

He said with appropriate technology development such as CCS, fossil fuels can continue to play a role at least in the short-term.

But Greenpeace is opposed to the application of CCS to coal-fired power stations to combat climate change. It released a briefing in October saying CCS "serves as a justification for increasing dependence on fossil fuels at a time when all efforts should be focused on moving towards the proven solutions of energy efficiency and renewable energy".

"In developing countries, the 'promise' of CCS threatens to derail efforts to develop low carbon energy systems," the statement continued.